Skiers enjoying a great day on the Calgary Ski Club novice daytrip Nov 21, 2009
I promised to give a report on Mt Shark trail/snow conditions, but I can’t because we didn’t end up skiing there. The new snow which fell overnight was so heavy we couldn’t get through the access road to the trailhead, so you know the recent grooming and tracksetting is buried. There must have been at least 20 cm. We continued down the Smith-Dorrien where we ended up on the trails in PLPP which I had originally planned for this trip.
We started at the Elkwood trailhead and skied on Wheeler, which is an excellent trail for beginners and novices. There was about 3-4 cm of new snow to cover the pine needles from yesterday, and the snow was cold enough for grip wax to work. Some of us had a few issues with icing, but it turned into a good wax clinic for the novices to observe how to deal with that.
There is only one hill of any note on Wheeler which gave us a chance to practice snowplowing and everyone made it down without incident. Mark enjoyed it so much, he climbed back up two more times just to get the practice!
Four of our skiers were out for the first time this year. I’m really pleased to see the newcomers to Calgary who are joining the club and getting out to enjoy our mountains. Two of our skiers today were from Britain, one from South Africa, and one from Ontario. Two more of our skiers were converts from downhill!
Thank you to Anonymous and Brian for the comments on the previous thread. It sounds like the conditions will be good tomorrow.
